Ask three cleaning services for a price on the same Yonkers home and the quotes can differ by forty percent. Two of the three are answering different questions. One is quoting an hourly guess. One is quoting a rate card built for an average home that doesn't exist. A flat quote for the actual home answers the question the other two avoid, and this post lists the inputs behind it so any quote can be checked, ours included.
The five inputs behind a flat price
Every quote runs on five inputs: size, bathrooms, condition, pets, and frequency. Size and bathroom count set the base, because bathrooms take the longest per square foot of any room. A 3-bed, 1-bath and a 3-bed, 3-bath are different jobs at the same square footage. Condition decides how much of a visit goes to catch-up work, which is why a first visit runs longer than the visits after it. Frequency changes the per-visit price, because a home cleaned every two weeks takes less work per visit than one cleaned quarterly.
Why a rate card fails
A rate card assigns a fixed number to a bedroom count and stops there. A 2-bedroom co-op in Fleetwood with one neat adult is a different job from a 2-bedroom in Crestwood with two kids, a dog, and a home office. Same count, roughly forty minutes of difference. A card either overcharges the easy home or underquotes the hard one, and both outcomes end in a phone call nobody wants. The five inputs replace the card with a number per home.
The time cost of maintenance
A maintained 3-bedroom runs about two to three hours with one cleaner, on the 50-point checklist. Deep cleans and move-in work run longer, and the quote names a time window instead of a vague promise. The cheaper number is the recurring one: a home cleaned every week or two holds its baseline, so each visit stays near two hours instead of growing toward four. Quarterly cleaning pays catch-up rates four times a year and costs more in total.
The two pricing mistakes
Two patterns show up weekly. The first is paying hourly with no cap, which rewards slow work and hands price discovery to the invoice. The second is booking one-time cleans on an irregular rhythm, which pays catch-up prices every single time. Flat pricing exists to kill both. The number is agreed before anyone touches a broom, and the quote lists what the visit covers.
What a quote should state
A serious quote answers four questions in writing: which rooms, which tasks in those rooms, how long the visit runs, and what happens if something gets missed. Ours state the full 50-point checklist and the 24-hour re-clean promise, so the number has something solid under it. A one-line quote with a dollar amount answers none of the four.
Getting your number
The quote form returns a flat price, usually within the hour during business hours. Call (914) 500-9112 to talk it through. The service area is Yonkers and a strict 5-mile circle around 135 Lockwood Ave in Bryn Mawr Park, from Bronxville to Hastings-on-Hudson. The number lands before anyone schedules anything.
The checklist
- Size and bathrooms set the base; condition adjusts it.
- Recurring frequency cuts per-visit cost; quarterly pays catch-up rates.
- Refuse hourly-without-cap quotes.
- A real quote names rooms, tasks, time, and the miss policy.
- Confirm the 50-point checklist appears on the quote.
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